The Seer And The Sword (2 page)

‘A son, my lady. Stillborn.’

Dreea’s face twisted into sobs.

‘No!’ Torina screamed, sliding down from Vesputo’s saddle. She ran to Stina.

‘What is it?’ Vesputo called. Torina leaped on her horse and drove her heels into the flanks, heading for home.

Outside the queen’s rooms, a group of women stood, waiting for news. Into this small crowd, Torina burst like a quick flame trying to take hold on green wood. She almost made it through the door.

Though she flailed and kicked, the women surrounded her, their soft arms firm as trees. She cried and called for her mother. They would not let her pass. When her cries gave way to shrieks of indignant anguish, some of them carried her to her room and stayed immovably by her side.

Dawn was beginning when Ancilla, Kareed’s old mother, crept in to be with her granddaughter. The girl lay
huddled in her carved bed, covered with blankets carefully worked by Dreea’s patient hands.

Ancilla had borne only boys, and all had been killed in the Sliviite wars except Kareed, the son who arrived when she believed she was past the age for conceiving. Now she was older than anyone else, so old that wrinkles almost swallowed the delicate features that had once rallied kings. Yet her steps were still light, her eyes filled with the famous fire of the warrior line of Archeld.

She sat beside Torina, her bones barely dimpling the mattress. She smoothed the girl’s wild hair. Torina’s eyes fluttered open. She kissed Ancilla’s withered fingers.

‘Where’s Mamma?’

‘Resting.’

‘The baby?’

‘A stillborn son.’ The old eyes misted.

Torina hugged her middle, staring as though impaled on some inner vision. The old queen followed her granddaughter’s gaze and saw a pure crystal globe sitting on the bureau across from the bed.

‘Stillborn!’ the child cried pointing. ‘Gramere, the crystal my father gave me told me that yesterday!’

Ancilla stared. Yesterday. The queen delivered this morning. How could the girl know? Was Torina a seer? Ah heaven, what a great and terrible gift, if she was.

Ancilla reached out to hold the shivering girl. Her thin voice quavered the ritual song of mourning. ‘One I love is taken from me . . .’

Torina joined her in broken, childish tones.

‘We will never walk together over the fields of earth,

King Kareed leaned against the stone wall of the courtyard, looking out over the road where all travel from the plains must pass. The army was returning, and the king stood in silent review of his troops. The men rode in disciplined ranks, saluting as they went by. Later, when they reached their quarters or reunited with their families, there would be rejoicing. A great victory. Bellandra, the invincible, conquered. Bellandra’s Sword taken. Yes, they would celebrate. But now, in the presence of the king, whose suit of mourning white proclaimed his latest loss, they were subdued.

At last, the rear contingent came into view. Vesputo, grim-faced and dusty, turned his horse into the courtyard of the castle, followed by a small band of soldiers. The king went to meet them. He gripped Vesputo’s hand as his protégé swung down.

‘All accounted for?’

Vesputo nodded.

‘Well done, Commander. Go refresh yourself. I know how well you deserve it.’

Vesputo took a deep breath and formed the formal words heard so many times during his five years serving King Kareed. ‘My spirit is saddened by the flight of your loved one.’

Kareed put a hand to his chest, then let it drop.
‘May it be granted that at the end of my days we reunite.’ Kareed thought of the many battles fought side by side with Vesputo. ‘A son.’

‘Ah. Sir, I—’

‘Next time, Commander, you’ll stay here and guard my family.’

The king stopped. Torina stood a few feet away, a mourning gown draped round her. How long had she been there? Her face was almost as white as her dress. He remembered he had not seen his daughter since she rode to meet him on the plains.

This stillbirth has changed us all
.

He extended an arm. Her tentative fingers clasped his. Where was the eager child who had leaped into his arms only the day before?

Her small hand curled round the present he had given her. She held it out. ‘This came from Bellandra?’

He nodded.

‘Who gave it to you?’

‘I saw it and thought of you. I forget who gave it to me.’

‘Did you see my face in it?’

‘Your face?’ Kareed frowned in puzzlement.

‘You’ve forgotten whose it was?’ she persisted. Her voice sounded strained.

‘Too many battles to remember all the places I’ve been.’

But Kareed did remember. The disturbing woman, older than Ancilla, bent and wizened. He had burst into her room during the search for the Sword, when they were sacking Bellandra. She had looked up at him with
ageless eyes, then down at the sparkling sphere in her lap. She smiled a twisted smile.

‘Ah,’ she moaned, and kissed the crystal. She held it up to him. ‘For your red-haired daughter.’

Then she folded in front of him. When he prodded her with a sword, she never moved. Kareed had stopped to pry the shining thing from her dead hand, and slipped it into his pouch for Torina.

How had this old woman known he had a red-haired daughter? But then, he was a red-haired man.

My son!
The pain possessed his soul again. He had seen the tiny, waxy-blue, perfectly formed infant who would never draw breath.
If I rode slowly, would you have lived?

He was sure Dreea would have no more children. Yet he could not bear to put aside his beloved wife for a younger, fertile woman. The king looked fondly down on Torina’s shining head, bent over the crystal.

The last child in a long and formidable line
.

Thinking of her that way made him remember the end of a different lineage.

‘I brought you another present, Torina,’ he said, suddenly grim. ‘Vesputo! Fetch the boy.’

The commander quickly returned. Before him walked the former prince of Bellandra. Dark, curling hair matted round his face; his features, under bruises and scrapes, looked still as driftwood. Dust and dirt had obliterated the elegant lines of his clothes. His legs, just beginning to lengthen towards manhood, were unsteady; his arms tied behind his back.

Vesputo thrust the young prisoner forward. The boy
stumbled and fell. Torina sprang to help him. Kareed saw the boy’s eyes flicker wide for an instant, his gaze like a hot sun frozen in ice, as the king’s daughter pulled him to his feet.

‘Who is he?’ Torina asked.

‘The son of a king.’

‘Why are his hands tied?’

‘He’s a prisoner. And the son of a king no more. I brought him here for you, Torina. He will make a fine slave.’ Silently he added,
Yes, a slave. No matter that none of your other servants are slaves. This is different. This will crown the defeat of Bellandra
.

Torina looked at the boy, at his heavy curling hair and wild, remote eyes.

‘If he is my slave,’ she asked, ‘does that make him my own?’

‘All your own.’

‘I can do whatever I want with him?’

The king nodded.

The princess shivered. ‘What is your name, son of a king?’ she asked.

‘Landen.’ The boy’s manner, still that of a prince, contrasted oddly with his dusty rags and bruises.

‘Vesputo,’ Torina said.

‘Princess?’

‘Cut his ropes, please.’

The commander looked to his king, who inclined his head. A blade was drawn. Vesputo severed the ropes carelessly, trailing fresh blood. Landen rubbed his wrists as Torina stepped closer to him.

‘My father fought your father.’ She said it very softly,
speaking as if no king or soldiers looked on. For her, they must have been forgotten.

Landen looked at the ground. A pulse in his neck beat, like the heart of a new-hatched bird.

‘Landen,’ she whispered. ‘I never had a slave.’

The boy stood quietly.

‘And I never will,’ she continued, lifting her chin. ‘Papa,’ her voice rose. ‘You gave him to me. I set him free.’

Kareed’s eyebrows billowed, a ferocious storm gathering. When Vesputo suggested making Landen a slave, it was to demean the spirit of Bellandra. King Veldon had strutted for too long behind his magic Sword, looking down his nose at warrior kings. Prince Landen of Bellandra, King Veldon’s only son, a slave to Kareed’s daughter! That would give everyone pause.

Now, she threw in his teeth this gift so dearly won. For a century, no one had dared attack Bellandra, but he, Kareed, had done it. The king felt the familiar battle rage rising. He wanted to strike Torina flat. There she was, standing small and white beside him. But there was something in the way she clasped her hands together; it was what her mother did when he told her he was going to war. Kareed remembered how Dreea had pleaded with him to spare Bellandra, to let them keep their ways. Women knew nothing of war. They knew nothing of battles, princes and kings. He sighed, swallowing his anger.
Perhaps I’ve allowed this war to sully my judgement. Torina knows I don’t keep slaves. And Bellandra’s defeat is complete without this boy. After all, he’s only thirteen – hardly more than a child
.

The king forced his face into a smile and pushed a laugh from his chest. ‘By my helmet!’ he cried in his battle voice. ‘She’s the true daughter of a king!’

A light wind picked up the collective sigh in the courtyard and carried it away. Men went about their business; taking horses to the stables, oiling weapons and stacking leather armour.

Landen stood, islanded, in the stream of activity. He rubbed his wrists with shaking hands, chest heaving as if his lungs were a bellows demanding more air. The girl near him pretended not to notice, looking past him to the distant mountains. Vesputo had gone. The young princess spoke affectionately to King Kareed, calling him to her side.

Landen’s knees trembled as his father’s killer approached. He remembered that cruel fist batting him down, in the chamber of the Sword.

‘Landen.’ The king’s rough voice held no animosity.

‘Sir.’ The word felt like a betrayal.

‘You are now a member of my household. You’ll receive warrior training with the other boys.’

The exiled prince felt faint. His father’s dying words rang in his ears.
Find someone who can teach you to fight
.

Kareed shifted his feet. ‘I bear you no ill will. The past is buried.’

Not for me. My
father
is buried
.

‘Torina,’ the king said. ‘Attend to this boy. See he’s fed, and get him washed.’ Kareed turned and left them.

Landen felt a small, confiding hand touch his arm.

‘This way,’ the red-haired girl guided. She led him
into the castle. She moved with assurance through the halls, to a private room. There she gave him a soft chair, then went out into the hallway.

Landen scanned the room. It was the first time he’d been out of bonds or cages since Bellandra fell. If he ran out of the door, would anyone stop him? He was a fast runner. He could get away, steal a horse, make his way back to Bellandra.

But what about the Sword? His father had told him to get the Sword. And what about learning to fight? Did anyone in Bellandra even know how?

He heard the red-haired girl speaking imperiously to someone, ordering a bath, steaming hot. Landen’s filthy, blood-scabbed skin cried out for the relief of a soaking. His hands shook, much as he tried to control them. The girl came back.

‘Your bath will be ready in moments,’ she told him, and there was kindness in her haughty voice.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, ashamed of the weakness that made him shiver.

‘My name’s Torina,’ she volunteered.

He mumbled her name, feeling exhaustion in body and spirit. He knew he should thank her: for setting him free from slavery; for having the good nature to tend him. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He looked at the furniture. It was rich, well placed, well polished. This was the castle of the most powerful king on the continent, if the soldiers were to be believed, and he was inside it. How had Kareed gained so much wealth and influence? Not by justice or compassion. Not by kindness.

How had Landen’s father, wise King Veldon, renowned poet, generous, honest man, been overcome by a harsh aggressor like Kareed? How had justice been routed, and peace bled to death? Where had Bellandra gone wrong?

Landen bit quivering lips as he pondered the answer.
Veldon was good, but not a good warrior. He didn’t know how to fight, didn’t think he’d ever have to. Kareed won because he was the stronger warrior
.

Landen didn’t like it. He didn’t like it, but knew it was true. In the Sword’s chamber, it had been Kareed who knew how to pick up a weapon, and he had done it without hesitation, with power and with glee, while Landen faltered, wasting precious seconds.

Running now would lose him his chance to find out what made this king the victor in every conquest he undertook. If Landen left, it would be like handing Kareed the Sword all over again. No, he must not go. He had to stay, learn everything he could. Kareed had promised he would be trained; and though Kareed was a ruthless invader, Landen had heard that his word was good.

I’ll hold you to your promise, King Kareed. And one day, I’ll take the Sword from you. When I do, I’ll know how to use it
.

A tap on the open door, and a large woman appeared. Torina took Landen’s hand again, as if he was a small child, and he allowed her to lead him. They followed the woman down a hallway to a luxurious private bath.

The boy bathed without thought of modesty, nearly
weeping with gratitude for the water’s heat and the glorious abrasions of fine soap. He was so tired it was a valiant effort to towel himself dry and step into the clothes Torina thoughtfully brought him. Sturdy, working clothes, they fitted, more or less. His ragged, stained Bellandran garments were gone.